Message from President Paul J. Zingg

I am pleased to introduce the 2012 President's Report and, especially, its online version. For the online form of this report is as much a statement about the report as is its content. The themes of the report connect us to the roots of our University and the remarkable continuities of purpose and performance that have marked our first 125 years. The online presentation of the report signals our engagement with a cost-efficient and effective communication medium and commitment to reach as broad an audience as possible.

This online version is, in effect, a metaphor for two powerful threads that run throughout our institutional narrative and each of the report's emphases. The first is engagement—both the assurance of the merit of our mission and the promise of its pursuit. The second is outreach—both the invitation to join and help shape our story and the responsibility to meet the expectations that we want those whom we serve and benefit to have in us.

The measure of our success in these regards hinges on the extent to which the values we profess and proclaim are, in fact, the values we live and enact. For, although a university is a place of people and ideas, it is also a place of integrity and action. It is a place where notions of higher education as both individual benefit and public good inform the work within and define worth beyond.

I trust you will find within this report evidence of an engaged university, a good community, and a compelling story. I hope it will strengthen your confidence in what we are achieving and your interest in our future.